On the top floor of a nondescript office building in Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui district is Denny’s Shop, where customers can have their beloved luxury handbags repaired so they look almost as good as new. Denny Ng and his two staff work in a space of less than 400 square feet (37 square metres) that’s filled with bags, tools, sheets of leather, paint, and cabinets full of fasteners, zips, rings and snap hooks. Most of the bags being repaired at the time the Post visited were from Chanel and Louis Vuitton, but the shop’s Facebook page shows all kinds of bags, including Hermès and Goyard. Ng, 58, was repairing a Chanel bag on which the leather had worn out. He carefully added layers of plaster mixed with paint, let it dry and sanded it down, before using black leather to cover it. After that, he painted it with several more layers, drying it with a hairdryer each time. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Denny’s Shop皮具維修專門店 (@dennysshop) “It’s almost there, just need to put more time into it,” said Ng. He will fix just about anything – for a price – and the repairs are complete only when he decides they are. “The customers might be happy with it, but I need to be satisfied with it. It is my work. There are many repair shops in Hong Kong that are looking to make a fast buck, so they just paint the bag over but it isn’t really fixed,” he explained. Some of those failed repairs come to him to be fixed again. Ng doesn’t mind having to redo someone else’s badly done job and said any item can be repaired – it just takes time and effort to complete them well. During the Post ’s visit, a few people came into the shop. One woman brought in a small Chanel bag on which the thin leather ribbon woven in the chain had come off (HK$600); another’s Chanel wallet was falling apart. Ng gave her an estimate of HK$1,600, which she readily paid in cash. One woman came in with two handbags, asking Ng if they could be repaired. One was a black Chloé bag, with patches where the colour had worn off. He said the bag wouldn’t just be cleaned but had to be painted again, and gave her an estimate of HK$3,500. “What these people do is shop around to A, B, C and D to see who has the cheapest price,” said Ng. Some are looking to get it done cheaply, while others may have had a bad experience before and want to get it done properly.” When asked which luxury brands make sturdier bags these days, Ng replied: “None of them”. Hanging on a hook was a cracked leather bag – Ng explained the leather used to make the bag was not good to start with. “The shop assistant’s job is to sell the bag, but after there’s something wrong with it, they will tell the customer it’s their fault for not looking after it properly. But sometimes, the material used to make the bag is not good.” Ng started working on handbags in 1976, when he was 13 years old. “The economy in Hong Kong in the 1970s wasn’t good at the time. If you weren’t well educated, you had to do manual labour, become a goldsmith, a cook, a tailor making qipaos or suits, or work in leather handbags and shoes. “My family was quite poor, like many were at the time. Most parents asked their children to become apprentices. I had an older brother who was making luxury handbags , so I joined him as an apprentice,” Ng explained. He apprenticed under a Shanghainese master leather craftsman who made handbags and shoes from scratch. At that time, tai tais (socialites) and wives of government officials would come to the shop, flip through Western fashion magazines and pick out the shoes and handbags they liked. Ng would help tailor-make them. “It was hard work. Once you had the skills, anyone could make a bag – but how well you made it, that was the difference,” Ng said. About 20 years ago, Ng began focusing on repairing handbags, but he did not take orders until he felt confident enough to do so. “Back when I was trying to master my skills, I would buy luxury items to experiment on the raw materials in my shop until I found a way to repair them,” he said. Will prices of more luxury brands go up after losses during lockdowns? While some customers are taken aback by his quotes, others happily pay, satisfied with Ng’s repair work. “From the moment we take an order, we must spend time and effort looking for the appropriate materials and preparing them,” he said. “We make money by devoting time and energy to our work. “If these customers think about the amount of time and effort we put into this, they won’t think we’re overcharging.” He said that sometimes handbags are not made well to start with, so it is not the customer’s fault the bag is soon damaged. But handbags generally have some natural wear and tear, as they are used often. “Nothing is forever,” Ng said, advising people to look after their bags by wiping them down after each use and exposure to dust and dirt and, if worn, to use leather polish to prolong a bag’s life. Ng says he gets a sense of achievement from repairing something to make it look good, not from how much money he has earned. “Sometimes, people don’t value an item because of its price, but rather because of what it means to them,” he says. “Last month, we had a job repairing a crocodile leather handbag. I think the customer was over 70 years old and the bag once belonged to her late mother. “It took us a long time to repair that handbag. Several of us worked together on the job. When we handed the handbag back to her, I think she was satisfied with our work.” For long-time customers, Ng will entertain requests to make handbags from scratch, but warns them it could take over a year before he finishes it. They don’t mind. “I can’t boast that we have excellent skills. But I can promise that we put more heart and effort into our jobs. If I am able to spend five, 10 or even 100 hours on a job, then there’s nothing I can’t repair. There are very few people willing to commit to something like that.”